


A Little Medicine

by JayceCarter



Series: Kinktober 2018 [12]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Injury, Kinktober 2018, Licking, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 13:08:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16264838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: When Shepard is injured and in pain, the only relief they have is the toxin on Thane's skin. However, when she ends up under the influence of toxin she's licked from his skin, can either of them keep their feelings secret?





	A Little Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> Kinktober Day 11: licking

 

The pain in Jane’s thigh had her gritting her teeth as Thane wrapped it. 

“Breathe, siha.” His hands worked gently over her thigh, fingers sliding against her skin in efficient and practiced motions. How many wounds had he wrapped himself? Maybe not many, since she rarely saw him hit. “You should not have done that.” 

Jane curled her hands into fists, her eyes closed as she tried not to make noise. She hated to show weakness. “Like I was going to let that vorcha touch you.” She tried to smile, knowing it was weak, and he’d see right through it.

“I was the one not paying attention, the one who allowed myself to be flanked. It was my wound to take.”

“Yeah, but humans scar so charmingly. Besides, your scales are too pretty to let some lucky shot mess them up.” 

His sigh made her smile. He was always mildly annoyed by her, and that never failed to please her, especially with the way his lips would tilt up. “I do not find scars you got because of me charming.”

When his fingers secured the bandage, Jane’s gasped, the sound torn from her throat, unable to hold it back. Her thigh throbbed, the blade having sliced deep into the muscle. They’d already called for a pick-up, but Garrus wouldn’t make it until morning. The closest touch down spot for the shuttle had been a few hours hike. 

They’d gotten separated when Tali had gotten a rupture in her suit. Jane had sent Garrus with Tali back; she’d need the help more than Jane would. Of course, she’d made that choice before Thane, and she had gotten pinned down by a group of vorcha. Stupid, but vicious. They’d pushed Jane back into the outskirts of the lab they’d been sent to check out. Thane had helped her hold them off, picking them off one at a time.

At least until one of the last vorcha had managed to outflank them, swinging around a corner, blade in his hand. Jane had thrown herself between him and Thane, taken the hit meant for him. A quick wrestle and she’d overpowered him, ended him.

It had all lead to her and Thane stuck in this tiny old building, something left over from building the station. He’d set a fire to keep them warm, set a few traps in case they’d missed some of the vorcha, but the perimeter seemed good. They sat on the floor as he checked her leg.

Now they just had to wait until Garrus got back, but the pain in her thigh throbbed. 

Thane’s soft voice stroked over her senses. “The wound is deep, the muscle damaged. The medi-gel and wrap will ensure you don’t bleed out, but it will hurt.”

“The one time I don’t bring anything fun, huh?” She hissed as she tried to adjust her position like there might be a way to sit that wasn’t agony. “Fuck, Thane, this hurts. We’ve really got nothing to help? You’re usually all about being a boy scout.”

“I have no medicine, no painkillers.”

“So nothing to help? Great.” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

Jane opened her eyes at the hesitation in Thane’s voice, the way he spoke slowly. “What?”

“There is an option. It is not one I would normally suggest, but you are in pain, and it is an option.”

“Look, I hurt so much I’m ready to try anything. Tell me whatever old lizard wives tale you have, and I’ll do it.”

His fingers traced the edges of the bandage, an absent stroke as he stared at her. “You know how we do not share glasses, utensils?”

“Yeah. I figured you were a germ freak.” 

He released a soft laugh. “No. Drell have a toxin on our scales. It isn’t potent enough to seriously harm a human, but it will affect a human.”

“What do you mean ‘affect?’” 

“It creates a sense of euphoria. Numbs pain. Loosens inhibitions. It works in many ways like alcohol, but without so many of the side effects.”

“People get high off your skin?” 

“Yes. In fact, some drell will sell the toxin for use in drinks when they require money.”

“You’re offering to scrape some off and let me use it?” 

He pulled in a deep breath, then shook his head. “Removing it requires tools we lack.”

“So it’s useless. Wonderful. Thanks for bringing it up.” 

Thane’s inner eyelids blinked, that slow, still motion when he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how. Finally, he set his hand flat on her thigh. “The toxin can be removed by direct contact and ingestion.” 

The words bloomed in her mind as she considered it, as she thought about it, as she came to understand the meaning. Her cheeks heated. “You’re telling me to lick you, and I’ll feel better? I feel like there are probably teenaged drell all over trying to talk girls into that.” 

“It has been known to happen. However, I assure you, I am no teenaged boy. I would never suggest such a thing if I was not sure it would help you-”

Jane lifted a hand to silence him. “I’m kidding. I know you wouldn’t try to trick me into licking you.” She frowned a moment as she considered it. 

She’d had some less than professional thoughts about Thane. It was hard to ignore the way he’d exercise in a pair of loose white cotton pants, bare-chested. Jane would sit at his table, and they’d talk. Thane would go through his motions, slow, careful, controlled. They reminded her of something between yoga and tai chi. He’d lean down into a push-up, then arch his back and bring a foot forward. 

Jane would spend the time watching, the motions soothing. There was something grounding in the way he moved, in the sure motions of it. Jane would sit, sketch pad on her thighs, and draw him. They’d talk, of his time as an assassin, of what he’d seen of Kolyat’s life, of his days with Irikah. Jane would speak of Earth, of the first Normandy, or her past. The quiet conversations had eaten up the loneliness of the nights. 

It was hardly innocent, though. Difficult to see it as innocent when the dim lights had created a sheen on the colorful scales of Thane’s back, over the ridges of his stomach. His sweats rode low on his hips, the stripes that ran from his back to curve around his sides and disappear below the waist of his pants. 

So the idea of licking him had some appeal, but not under these circumstances. Maybe that’s what made it okay? With the pain in her leg, it wasn’t like she’d be feeling very frisky. It would be more like taking medicine.

Medicine licked off the scales of a man she regularly fantasized about.

Right.

Thane undid the clasps of his jacket, then stood to drop it from his shoulders. “I do not like you hurting. Please, allow me to help in what little way I can?” He folded the jacket and draped it over a table near the side of the room. His fingers went to the zipper of his outfit.

“Why are you taking that off?” Jane couldn’t hide the panic in her voice.

Thane didn’t pause as he worked down the zipper. “The toxin dries and becomes less effective the more it is exposed to air. The most potent will be found in areas covered by clothing.” He shifted the fabric off his shoulders and down his arms, letting it hang around his hips, showing off those stripes that fascinated her. “In addition, as the original intent was to avoid predators trying to eat us, the most potent is nearer the center of the body to protect vital organs.”

Of course, that was the case. It was just her luck that a taste of the back of his hand wouldn’t suffice. 

Thane came over beside her, dropping to his knees in that graceful way that always had her envious. He set a hand behind her neck, his thumb making her look him in the eyes. “Please? I know this is unorthodox, but it will help. It need not be awkward or uncomfortable.” 

Jane wanted to say no. How exactly was she supposed to keep things professional after this? It was the look in his face, the way he wanted to help, the fact she knew he’d hold guilt if she rejected him that made her pull in a breath and nod. “Okay.”

#

Thane kept a tight grip on his reaction. There was no reason for Jane to know how much he wanted this.

Yes, it would help her. He’d never lie to her or trick her into something of this sort for his own personal gain. Her hands trembled, her face pale, all signs that the pain was far more than she let on. His toxin would soothe her, but he would not lie to himself that he had no other thoughts. 

He’d fought down his feelings for her for weeks. Each time they crept forward, each time he’d catch himself staring at her during the times together he so cherished, he’d take a deep breath and push them to the back of his mind.

He was dying. He’d already ruined one woman’s life; he did not need to do so to a second. Jane deserved a great many things in her life, things he could not give her. A future, a family, the sort of ease that came from being normal.

Thane would never be normal, and certainly not in the few years he had left. He knew nothing of normal. His attempt for Irikah had ended in their poverty and drifting apart. No, a normal life had never been for him. Given he was a drell, they had no chance at a family, not that he’d ever leave a child behind, not when he had so little time left already. 

No, there was nothing between them that could end in anything but heartache for her.

So Thane would pretend he felt nothing, allowing his evenings to pass lost in the moments that had come during the day, the moments when he’d catch sight of her, when she would smile, when she would offer friendship he knew he never deserved.

How he would keep up such appearances when he had her lips on him, her tongue against his scales, he didn’t know. He only knew he had to. 

Thane sat on the floor beside her, then helped ease her over. It left her draped over his outstretched legs, her weight braced on her uninjured leg, and her lips far too near his chest for his control. 

Still, he remained motionless, passive beside the hand behind her neck, the one that encouraged her. 

Her breath warmed his scales, but she didn’t make contact. Her gaze locked on the darker green of his stripes, the ones that started on his back near his shoulders and wrapped down, around his sides. 

Thane pulled her near the tail of one that set just below his chest on his front.

Finally, she made contact with a hesitant kiss, something that sunk beyond his scales, beyond his past, and seared him. Her tongue, warm and soft, stroked over the edge of that stripe.

She pulled back, brows furrowed to look at up him.

“What?”

“You taste like cinnamon.” 

“Cinnamon? Is that objectionable?” 

A flush colored her cheeks, but as an answer, she only shook her head and lowered her lips to the same spot. She dragged her tongue along the line of the stripe, following the upper edge to his side, twisting her neck slightly to avoid his arm.

He grit his teeth, warning his body not to react. 

As the toxin worked into her system, a short wait as it metabolized quickly, her body lost the rigid stance. Her hand, the one not braced on the floor but rather on his side, released its death-grip and shifted so the thumb toyed over his scales. Her lips lost their hesitation, her tongue no longer taking small tastes of him but instead pointing to tease his skin.

And it was something his body was no longer willing to ignore. True, he believed as his kind did that his body was something separate, a vessel with its own thoughts, but never had that truly frightened him until that moment. A part of him he could not leash clawed for her, to guide those touches and teases to where it wanted.

Thane released her, bringing his hands to his side as to not tempt his body to direct her lower.

Not that she needed direction. Jane left a line of kisses, her tongue only flicking out to no longer take toxin but to enjoy, down his stomach. She lavished attention on his stomach, dipping into his navel, playing along the rises and falls of his muscles, until the fabric at his hips stopped her. 

Jane’s fingers slid into the edge of the fabric, trying to pull it lower.

What little honor he held still had him grasping her hands. “Wait, siha.”

The look she cast up had his heart stuttering. Open. Wanting. Trusting. Those things he had wished to see from her, but it was the clouded distance of his toxin that had him holding her hands.

“Please?” 

“You are in no mind to make such a choice.” 

She leaned in to offer a kiss to the line of his clothing, to trace it with her tongue. “I’ve wanted this since we met, Thane. I need this.” 

Thane tugged her hands until she moved up his body, not a single wince telling him the toxin had eased the pain in her thigh. He caught her chin but did not release her wrists. Better not to trust her. “This is not the right time. As I said, the toxin behaves like alcohol, and I am sure you understand morning-after regrets.”

“I won’t regret anything. Please?” She leaned in to swipe her tongue along his bottom lip.

He steeled himself against the temptation. Mostly. The small concession he allowed was to close the small space between them to return the playful taste. Not nearly as much as he wished, but perhaps all he would ever have. It was easy when under the influence to want things, but that had little bearing on the sober mind.

He made no mistakes about her actions. She would wake the next day regretting her behavior. She would realize they had no future, that the actions had been a result of two available adults and an intoxicant. Nothing more.

“If you are so certain you would not regret them, then they will be there when you are no longer influenced by my toxin.” 

She pouted. A real, honest pout, with her bottom lip sticking out. Ah, her friends would never allow her to live down such a thing as the mighty Commander Shepard pouting when denied what she wanted. It had him running his thumb across the lip, a smile tipping his lips up.

He so rarely smiled anymore, so rarely had reason to.

His smile slipped when she wrapped her tongue around his thumb and captured it between her lips. The licking had been hard enough to ignore, but the way she suckled his thumb? The way he pictured how else she could use such skills? He pulled in a shaky breath before pulling the thumb from her lips and wrapping his arms around her.

“Close your eyes, siha. A short rest and Garrus will be here.”

She huffed an unhappy sound against his chest but eased into the embrace. Her arms wrapped around him, her body pressed against his in a way that would ensure no rest for him. Not that he would have rested anyway. This moment was one that would break before long when real life and her sanity returned. It would dissipate to vapors, relegated to memories he’d lose himself in during the nights.

So Thane let his hands wander in innocent and fleeting touches over her back, her sides, her hair, as he committed each to memory.

It would be the only place he’d be able to revisit such a moment.

 

#

 

Jane groaned, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes against the bright lights of the exercise room. A day back and her thigh had mostly healed. She’d have preferred running, to work off all the anxiety inside of her, but Chakwas had been clear such a thing was off the table.

Instead, she’d used the large padded mats to stretch. It reminded her of Thane, of the way he went through his motions there, and no matter how she tried to push it from her mind, she couldn’t.

He’d rejected her. Her time beneath his toxin lack clarity. She recalled her clumsy attempts to get him to remove more clothing, had no doubt that had he said yes, they’d have had sex right there. She’d been desperate to pull down his outfit further, to use her lips and explore every inch of him. 

His toxin was something she could get used to, something she craved. How easy it had been to let go, to not worry. She hadn’t worried about doing things right, about the voice in her head demanding perfection, nothing but what she’d wanted. 

The door slid open, and Jane lifted her gaze to find Thane. He stepped into the room, his gaze doing the cursory check he always did, proof of his life in dangerous work, but when they settled on her, he froze.

It was the sort of hesitation she hadn’t expected to ever see on Thane.

Worse? He wore those white cotton pants, loose and hanging low on his hips. Her gaze locked on the bared scales, on the space she’d traced with her lips and tongue the day before.

“Shepard.” His voice stayed low, his feet frozen just inside the door. “I hadn’t realized you’d be here. Would you like me to leave?” 

Jane stared up at him from her place on the floor and shook her head. “No. You don’t need to go. It’s not like I can do much exercising anyway.” 

He nodded toward her leg. “Is your thigh still hurting?”

“It’s not bad, but I’m not supposed to do much. Chakwas gave me something for the pain.” Nora stretched the leg out, the bandage gone, a liquid adhesive used instead. It showed the dark bruising that spanned nearly the length of that thigh. “A week or so and it’ll be like it never happened.”

Thane’s gaze moved over the leg, lips pursing for a moment. “I find I don’t care for you being injured.” 

Jane went to stand, but all the energy she’d had at first had drifted away. Her leg gave out as she rose. She’d have toppled to the floor, except a strong arm slid around her waist and caught her, pulled her against him.

“Careful,” he said as he took her weight, helping her to a seat near the side of the room. He lowered her into the chair and crouched before her. “It seems exercise might have been too soon.”

Jane dropped her head into her hands, unwilling to look at him. “You’re always doing that, aren’t you?”

“Doing what?”

“Always helping.”

He placed his hands around her wrists to tug her hands from her face. “I doubt I have often been described as helpful in my life.”

“You kept me from falling, you helped me yesterday. You keep helping me when you have no reason to.” 

“No reason to? I had thought we were friends. While I don’t have a great deal of experience with that concept, I believe helping one another is what they do.” 

The word grated against her nerves. “Right.  _ Friends _ .” Friends don’t tongue each other like she had, don’t think about each other as she did. 

He leaned down to catch her gaze when she tried to avoid it. “Do you not wish to be friends any longer?” 

“After what happened? How can we be?” 

 

#

 

Thane tried to hide the hurt. He must not have hidden his feelings well enough, must have made some mistake she’d picked up on. Perhaps she blamed him for suggesting it at all.

Did she feel misled? Betrayed? Embarrassed? 

He hadn’t had her, and yet he was losing her. 

“I would never put you in such a position again, si-” He caught himself, swallowing down the endearment than meant so much to him. “Shepard.”

“Of course not. You want to be friends.”

Thane paused at the strained tone. “What is it you want? Explain to me what it is you want from me, and I will try to do what you need of me.” 

The answer did not please her, though. Her lips pressed together, unhappiness in tight lines around her lips. “I want you to do what you want. I feel like I’ve pushed you into more than enough already.” 

“Push? I am afraid I fail to understand.” 

“What happened yesterday, you did that for me, and I went too far. I pushed things past what you’d offered. That was my fault, Thane, and I don’t know how to go back. I don’t know how to fix it.”

She was upset not about his behavior but hers?

“There is nothing to fix.”

She finally looked at him, really met his gaze head-on. “I’m sorry I let my feelings for you get in the way, that I let them complicate what was a generous gesture from you. I get that you don’t feel the same; I’d already known that, but apparently I don’t hold my drell toxin very well and-”

Thane held his hand up to silence her. “Your feelings?”

“Thanks for playing stupid for my benefit, but you’re way too perceptive to not know how I feel about you. I promise I won’t ever-”

This time he set his hand over her mouth because another word from her and his fleeting courage might disappear altogether. “I love you, siha. I have since that first day when you sat across from me, and we spoke for hours into the late evening. I just never considered you might be foolish enough to return those feelings.” 

She said nothing, though her eyes moved, subtle twitches that happened when her mind worked.

“Say something.” 

She rolled her eyes then gestured to where he still covered her mouth.

Thane pulled his hand away, a quiet apology on his lips, but she didn’t give him a moment to think.

Instead, she slid her hand behind his neck and pulled him forward into the kiss they’d both been denied the night before. Her lips moved against his, soft and unsure and everything he could have hoped from something he’d never dared hope for.

When she pulled back from the kiss, he remained perched on his knees between her thigh, their faces so close her breath still spilled over his lips.

“Why didn’t you want me yesterday if you felt this way?”

“Because I could not be sure you wanted me. If it were just an effect of the toxin, I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing regret across your face.” He cupped her cheek with his palm. “So, where does this leave us? What does this mean?” 

Her hand slid down his chest until two fingers dip below the waist of his pants. “I was hoping maybe we could pick up where we left off yesterday. That is if you can keep yourself from interrupting me.” 

He laughed softly at the offer, his thumb tracing her cheekbone, still unable to believe he’d be able to touch her like that. “I believe I would let nothing short of a Reaper invasion interrupt us.” His voice broke at the end when her hand slipped into the fabric, when it wrapped around his cock. “In fact, I think I would be willing to ignore even that, siha, so long as you stay with me.” 

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
